QUESTION: Our garden is beginning to yield its annual bounty of zucchini.A well-meaning friend with whom I shared some of the overload thanked me and then informed me that zucchini has very little nutritional value.Is she right?ANSWER: If you measure the worth of zucchini strictly in terms of vitamins and minerals, she is probably correct. Like many other vegetables, it provides small amounts of B vitamins, a little iron and other minerals, and some fiber.On the other hand, it is also very low in calories, and can be made into a number of dishes which boost the volume of the meal without adding appreciably to its caloric load.

Amanda Pacheco didn't intend to start a movement. But in September, when one of her friends died suddenly, leaving behind a 6-week-old baby, Pacheco rallied dozens of breast-feeding moms to donate breast milk to her friend's daughter, baby Sara. Before long, Pacheco had more donations of breast milk than little baby Sara could use. Orlando moms donated dozens of packets of frozen breast milk. Four local businesses volunteered to serve as drop-off locations and provided freezers to store the milk.

Odd, how the phony notion that women are none too good at math has persisted. Women have perpetuated it too. In fact, though, women balance the checkbooks in two out of three American homes, most often because they're better at it.The word ''ketchup'' comes from an Oriental word, but not a word that had anything to do with tomatoes, ketchup's primary ingredient. Oriental cooking doesn't call for tomatoes. Never has.Something else the seniors remember that the juniors don't is the taste of unflavored cod liver oil.Q.

FAN MAKES DIFFERENCE You probably heard the Nationals wore Virginia Tech caps Tuesday night in a tribute to the wounded university. The idea came from a fan who e-mailed team president Stan Kasten, who got permission from Major League Baseball. Kudos to MLB for allowing the gesture because it would be interesting to see whether the NFL would have done the same. CLYDE GLIDES Clyde "The Glide" Drexler was shown the door on Dancing With The Stars after a revolting rumba. I've always had trouble with the rumba, too. "One, two, three and kick -- one, two, three and fall down."

FAN MAKES DIFFERENCE You probably heard the Nationals wore Virginia Tech caps Tuesday night in a tribute to the wounded university. The idea came from a fan who e-mailed team president Stan Kasten, who got permission from Major League Baseball. Kudos to MLB for allowing the gesture because it would be interesting to see whether the NFL would have done the same. CLYDE GLIDES Clyde "The Glide" Drexler was shown the door on Dancing With The Stars after a revolting rumba. I've always had trouble with the rumba, too. "One, two, three and kick -- one, two, three and fall down."

Diagnosing illnesses in cyberspace may be a distant reality, but more physicians should take advantage of the Internet and e-mail to inform and communicate with patients, researchers said. ``E-mail has become a ubiquitous tool for communicating with business associates, friends and family. So there should be little surprise that Net-savvy patients would like greater digital access to their physicians,'' said Tom Ferguson, the author of an editorial in a special edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association devoted to the subject.

Children are at the greatest risk when nutritional controversy is exploding. That's especially true when dietary foundations are shaken, as in the case of the recent debate about the healthfulness of milk.The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Dietetic Association and other groups responded quickly when the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a Washington-based consumer group, recommended that cow's milk be reduced in or eliminated from the diet of children.Dr. Benjamin Spock joined in recommending that whole cow's milk not be given to infants younger than 1 year.

Recall when the big earthquake tore up Mexico City? Some dog owners were killed, some displaced. Anyhow, about 10,000 dogs were abandoned there that day.Ralph Waldo Emerson was of the opinion that any time is a good time if you know what to do with it.There weren't any dandelions around here until colonists brought them from Europe.Q. What's honey -- a liquid or a solid?A. It can't make up its mind. Like ketchup, mayonnaise, face cream and toothpaste. They're ''thixotropic'' substances. Surely you'll remember that and so designate them henceforth.

Babies should be breast-fed for the first six to 12 months and shouldn't be given cow's milk or low-iron formula before their first birthday, the American Academy of Pediatrics says. In a statement published in the May edition of the American Academy of Pediatrics News, the group said the only acceptable alternative to breast milk is iron-fortified infant formula. Appropriate solid foods and juices should be added when the child is 4 to 6 months old. The academy said infants who are fed whole cow's milk don't get enough iron, linoleic acid and vitamin E, and get too much sodium, potassium and protein.

Amanda Pacheco didn't intend to start a movement. But in September, when one of her friends died suddenly, leaving behind a 6-week-old baby, Pacheco rallied dozens of breast-feeding moms to donate breast milk to her friend's daughter, baby Sara. Before long, Pacheco had more donations of breast milk than little baby Sara could use. Orlando moms donated dozens of packets of frozen breast milk. Four local businesses volunteered to serve as drop-off locations and provided freezers to store the milk.

Diagnosing illnesses in cyberspace may be a distant reality, but more physicians should take advantage of the Internet and e-mail to inform and communicate with patients, researchers said. ``E-mail has become a ubiquitous tool for communicating with business associates, friends and family. So there should be little surprise that Net-savvy patients would like greater digital access to their physicians,'' said Tom Ferguson, the author of an editorial in a special edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association devoted to the subject.

A new anti-glaucoma drug taken only once a day outperformed a standard treatment in reducing eye pressure and caused few side effects, Japanese researchers report. Latanoprost proved to be 7 percent more effective than timolol, a commonly used anti-glaucoma drug, in reducing the potentially dangerous pressure inside the eyeball, they found. The new drug recently was approved by the Food and Drug Administration and will be available by this month under the brand name Xalatan.Study: Spouse's death raises risk survivor will dieWhen a spouse dies, the surviving partner has a significantly increased risk of also dying, according to a five-year study of 1.5 million Finnish people.

Children are at the greatest risk when nutritional controversy is exploding. That's especially true when dietary foundations are shaken, as in the case of the recent debate about the healthfulness of milk.The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Dietetic Association and other groups responded quickly when the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a Washington-based consumer group, recommended that cow's milk be reduced in or eliminated from the diet of children.Dr. Benjamin Spock joined in recommending that whole cow's milk not be given to infants younger than 1 year.

Telling Americans to stop drinking milk is like telling them to stop pledging allegiance to the flag or to stop watching televised sports. It's almost sacrilegious.But that's what Dr. Benjamin Spock and a group of doctors called the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine recommended recently. In a Boston press conference on Sept. 29, the group said that cow's milk can be hazardous to adults, children and especially infants.Although kids probably have been drinking cow's milk since cattle first were domesticated, the PCRM doctors warned that it can cause allergies, contribute to childhood diabetes, damage the body's immune system, cause intestinal blood loss and trigger indigestion.

Drinking cow's milk during infancy may trigger juvenile diabetes in people who are genetically prone to diabetes, and avoiding it might provide a simple way to prevent this serious disease, a study concludes. The study, recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine, raises the possibility that when diabetes runs in families, parents may be able to protect their children by eliminating dairy products during the formative first nine months or so after birth. However, the case against milk is strongly circumstantial and not yet proven.

Babies should be breast-fed for the first six to 12 months and shouldn't be given cow's milk or low-iron formula before their first birthday, the American Academy of Pediatrics says. In a statement published in the May edition of the American Academy of Pediatrics News, the group said the only acceptable alternative to breast milk is iron-fortified infant formula. Appropriate solid foods and juices should be added when the child is 4 to 6 months old. The academy said infants who are fed whole cow's milk don't get enough iron, linoleic acid and vitamin E, and get too much sodium, potassium and protein.

Telling Americans to stop drinking milk is like telling them to stop pledging allegiance to the flag or to stop watching televised sports. It's almost sacrilegious.But that's what Dr. Benjamin Spock and a group of doctors called the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine recommended recently. In a Boston press conference on Sept. 29, the group said that cow's milk can be hazardous to adults, children and especially infants.Although kids probably have been drinking cow's milk since cattle first were domesticated, the PCRM doctors warned that it can cause allergies, contribute to childhood diabetes, damage the body's immune system, cause intestinal blood loss and trigger indigestion.

A new anti-glaucoma drug taken only once a day outperformed a standard treatment in reducing eye pressure and caused few side effects, Japanese researchers report. Latanoprost proved to be 7 percent more effective than timolol, a commonly used anti-glaucoma drug, in reducing the potentially dangerous pressure inside the eyeball, they found. The new drug recently was approved by the Food and Drug Administration and will be available by this month under the brand name Xalatan.Study: Spouse's death raises risk survivor will dieWhen a spouse dies, the surviving partner has a significantly increased risk of also dying, according to a five-year study of 1.5 million Finnish people.

If your infant has colic, suspect milk. Cow's milk is a notorious instigator of stomach distress and inconsolable crying in some newborns, say researchers.A new Italian study found that 50 of 70 severely colicky infants, average age 1 month, had an intolerance to proteins in their milk formulas. The colic symptoms subsided when the infants were taken off the milk. When they were fed the milk again as a test, colic returned in all of them.The same thing can happen in breast-fed infants if the mother drinks milk or eats dairy products, said pediatrician Irene Jakobsson of Sweden's Malmo General Hospital, a noted researcher on the subject.

QUESTION: Our garden is beginning to yield its annual bounty of zucchini.A well-meaning friend with whom I shared some of the overload thanked me and then informed me that zucchini has very little nutritional value.Is she right?ANSWER: If you measure the worth of zucchini strictly in terms of vitamins and minerals, she is probably correct. Like many other vegetables, it provides small amounts of B vitamins, a little iron and other minerals, and some fiber.On the other hand, it is also very low in calories, and can be made into a number of dishes which boost the volume of the meal without adding appreciably to its caloric load.